Robes of a Different Color
Chapter 3: The Pact
Disclaimer- Inuyasha and the associated characters still do not belong to me, or do they? No, no, not mine.
Even gods lose
When they gamble
- Asian proverb
The sun had tongued indolently over the western sky towards its resting place in the mountains. Soft buzzing filled the late summer forest, a slow subterranean cadence the perfect backdrop for a typical day in the Sengoku jidai. A pretty school girl, her black hair a ravens wing beating in the wind, repositioned herself once again.
Ahhh it's so nice to finally have some peace and quite. It's never this quiet at home, in the future. She picked up a small twig from beside her resting place and played with it absently. I wonder if Inuyasha is ok. She shook her head slightly as if to chide herself. Of course he is, he's stronger then most full youkai after all, the guy isn't going to get in much trouble taking a bath, especially with Miroku there too. Kagome blushed slightly as her mind drifted over the image of an unclothed Inuyasha bathing only a mile away. She forced her thoughts elsewhere unintentionally thinking back to Miroku's offer to assist, she blushed again, and forced her mind to blank.
Sigh
The young miko lounged on her sleeping bag languidly staring into the fire. The fire was a red stylus punctuating the green moss, as hissing cat all teeth and claws, breaking the stillness with pops and quakes, the product of recent rain. With another sigh Kagome rolled over to glance at her friend.
Sango sat on a nearby log attentively polishing Hiraikotsu. Each movement a prayer for perfection, each gesture a study in conservation. Hers was a beauty born of danger, a predatory cat in repose, in stillness the suggestion of danger. Kagome rolled back, lifting her eyes to study the trees overhead, the smoke from the fire snaking away into the distance.
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Shippou's bare feet found comfort in the forests loamy carpet; his pace an imitation of the day, youth's ebullient tempo staccatoed by a fire cat. Leisurely he arrived at the spring were Miroku and Inuyasha were bathing. Out near the center of the spring he could see Inuyasha's silver mane spayed across broad bare shoulders.
"Hey Inuyasha, I have some…" Shippou trailed off, the youth in the pond was distracted by something.
Inuyasha spun again, ignoring the kitsune child calling to him from the far shore. For just a moment his youkai sense had detected danger. He could hear his heart begin to race, a cold dread creeping up his spine. Miroku was missing; he had sunk beneath the dark glassy plane of the spring and then had simply vanished. His inu hearing detected the faint sound of small bubbles bursting on the face of the pound, slightly to his right. He turned and just as suddenly darkness rose to meet him.
Shippou could discern from Inuyasha's anxious thrashing that something was amiss. Just as the red headed boy was about to call out to his friend again the half youkai was abruptly yanked underwater. Shippou gave an involuntary yelp of freight and Kirara transformed in anticipation of attack.
Then as if from nowhere Miroku and Inuyasha emerged from the midnight plane of water- the monk's laughter a sharp contrast to Inuyasha's angry sputtering. Shippou relaxed visibly as his friends emerged from beneath the water, smiling at their antics.
"Karma has a way of sneaking up on you, my friend." The monk chided while moving towards the shore.
"Feh! You sorry excuse for a monk, like you have any room to lecture to me," Inuyasha rasped.
Shippou waited warily for the men to make their way to the shore, he did not want to garner attention from the ever angry inu hanyou.
Why did Miroku provoke him? He barely needs an excuse to be a jerk as it is. Shippou pondered this ruefully before shrugging his shoulders. I guess because it's just so fun.
The kitsune boy walked up to the Inuyasha and Miroku as they reached the shore delivering the shampoo and soap to the arguing pair.
Shippou, not to be out done, goaded the two as he handed the soap to Miroku, "the girls say you REALLY need this, since you stink so bad and all. They told me to make sure you us it, otherwise they don't want you to come back."
"W-What…they said that?" Inuyasha's ears wilted as he turns towards Miroku.
"It's not our fault Sango…" Inuyasha stopped speaking as he noticed the wide smile on Miroku's face and the now giggling kitsune kit rolling on the ground holding his sides.
"Why you little runt…" Inuyasha growled taking what must have been the fifth swipe at the child that day.
Shippou dodged the clawed anger of the inu hanyou, chuckling as he scampered off to play with the diminutive fire cat youkai.
Miroku began removing his sodden clothes rinsing the gunk off of them in the process. With an appreciative smile he stooped to inspect his handy work, satisfied with the results of his washing he rung the excess liquid out and draped the robes across a sun swathed rock to dry. He then quickly retrieved the beauty products supplied by Shippou.
Inuyasha glanced at the soap and shampoo offered by the monk, before sneering in disgust.
"Feh, I don't need that stinking stuff." Inuyasha said while scooping a handful of sand and smooth pebble from the wet shore.
"This works just fine." The hanyou smoothed the sand through his hair. He worked the sand down the shafts of his long silky alabaster tresses, quickly removing the entrails and dirt. The sand worked remarkably well without imparting any lingering smells that might offend Inuyasha's sensitive nose. The youkai filth had been largely washed way before the hanyou dunked himself beneath the surface to rinse the remaining sand from his hair. Deftly he took another scoop of sand and quickly began abrading his supple skin, removing any remaining youkai bits, transforming his fair countenance to a rosy blush in the process.
Miroku had moved a bit off towards a crop of half submerged rocks so that he could relax while indulging in the futuristic beauty regime afforded from Kagome's gift.
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At last, after nearly millennia, the spell has been broken, and I can be free at last.
The silver demon chortled evilly.
Now to be free of this murky prison…
There was a flash of silver so slight even the bathing hanyou could not detect it. The youkai coursed onward, like a knife in the moonlight, flashing his intent; unnoticed by the monk, unnoticed by the hanyou until he was amongst the rocks. He waited, and watched, as he had grown quite patient in his years of imprisonment.
The monk stepped forward unaware of danger, intent only upon ridding himself of the youkai remains that had so providently rendered both himself and his hanyou friend unable to discern the sinister aura of the glade. Miroku took one step, then another, closer and closer into the jaws of the youkai that waited patiently below.
One more step and I will have you my stupid human, you will be imprisoned here while I walk once again upon the earth, all will tremble before my might, all will bow…
And then it happened Miroku lifted his foot and began to bring it down again just as one of Shippou's toy snakes appeared before the unsuspecting monk. The momentary shock stumbled the usually sure footed Houshi plunging him forward to hit the rock before him with a shocking squish.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Squish? Was Miroku's last coherent thought before the spring was engulfed in a blinding light.
Shippou who was teasing Kirara with a bit of ribbon Kagome had provided staggered back as his friends momentarily disappeared in a flash of white. When his vision returned and small white and black ghosts stopped swimming in front of him he could see Inuyasha and Miroku laying still. The small kitsune raced towards Inuyasha who had been close to the shore and had fallen with his upper torso out of the water.
The silver haired hanyou lay as if in a deep sleep, eyes closed and ears unmoving. Shippou struggled to push Inuyasha onto his back, but the weight was too much for the small demon. Resigning himself, Shippou tilted the boy's head to the side.
Miroku had fallen forward onto the rocks near where Shippou had unleashed his snake illusion. The dark-haired monk was in peril of slipping from his precarious perch and sinking beneath the water.
Kirara, transformed once again and flew to the unconscious monk, gingerly taking the nude man in her jaw. She lifted him from the rocks and laid him gently by the anesthetized hanyou on the shore.
"Inuyasha, Miroku, please wake up!" The red headed kitsune pleaded, gently slapping the monks face. The action had no effect.
"Inuyasha you stupid jerk, don't you die." Shippou half heartedly chomped down on the seemingly dead man's head. Tears were running unabatedly down the forlorn child's face when his chomps failed to incur even the most miniscule trace of irritation or awareness. After several more attempts the small boy wiped his face with the back of his arm and turned bravely towards the still transformed Fire-cat youkai.
"You stay here and guard them Kirara, Kagome and Sango will know what to do." With a slight nod from the cat beast the kitsune child made his way swiftly from the spring back towards the camp.
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Shippou coursed like a volcano erupting, covering the distance with angry speed, slicing the day's lazy pace with his on chaotic energy. He arched his neck forward, straining to cover the distance, blinded by the tears, crashing through the clearing; lightning made flesh.
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Kagome laughed quietly at the tale Sango was recounting involving an encounter with a Slug youkai. The pair were startled out of the revelries by the anguished cry of an incoming kitsune.
"Kagomeeee…." Shippou wept as he jumped up into the awaiting girl's arms.
Great what did Inuyasha do now?
But before she could lend voice to her thoughts the child ceased his sobbing long enough to explain further.
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Miroku slowly sat up placing a hand to his head and looked around slowly. Spying the body next to him, his eyes grew large in silence. Carefully he prodded the familiar figure, resulting in a muzzy moan. The dark haired man beside him squinted while propping himself into a half sitting position. As the figure's eyes adjusted he moved his gaze up from the well muscled arm on the ground before him to the still staring face of an amber eyed hanyou. Instantly a look of dread marred the man's visage; just as it had the faster recovering hanyou.
"I…you…" The black haired man could hear himself say…but the ability to form coherent thoughts into words and sentences seemed to escape the pair for a moment longer.
The silver-haired hanyou pried his eyes off of his bewildered companion to examine his own body for additional damage. His clawed hand smoothed his chest on its downward examination of his own anatomy. A mischievous flicker in his eyes flared and then died as his hands stopped and then continued their careful trek down the slope of his thigh to his muscular calf to the clawed tips of his toes.
The violet-eyed man, for his own part, was staring intently at the back of his hands as if trying to memorize the dull point of his nails and the cool glint of the prayer beads wrapped around his right hand.
His eyes glazed slightly as he gingerly brought his left hand towards his throat as if expecting to find an open wound. At finding nothing his eyes flashed violet as he intently returned his gaze to the silver-haired boy beside him.
The hanyou still sat slightly grinning when the handsome monk beside him finally fixed him with an intent look. The monk's gaze began to take on a heated aspect when the hanyou failed to acknowledge him. Suddenly he turned to face his friend.
"Calm yourself," Miroku placated, "this is easily fixed." Furrowing his brow slightly, he continued, "Though, perhaps it would be better if the others did no know."
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Sango and Kagome streaked through the forest, Shippou once again wearing a look of determination.
I can not cry. I will have to protect these helpless humans, now that Inuyasha and Miroku are…
The three had breached the tree line beside the spring when they were halted in there tracks by a quite unexpected sight.
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The monk gave the silver haired youth a distrustful look.
"Give me one good reason why we should not tell…"
Both men lowered there voices as they to spoke in earnest. Minutes had elapsed when there discourse was interrupted by the loud entrance of a kitsune child followed by two frantic females breaking through a copse of trees on their left. The women halted their frenetic speech as they gaped in horror at the very naked males standing before them.
The monk reflexively covered himself and glared in anger and embarrassment at the interrupting party. The muscular hanyou simply turned, smirking from his companion to peer at the blushing women before them, making no move to cover himself. Inuyasha's eye's widened slightly at the hanyou's behavior and stepped in from of Miroku, shielding the women from the not insignificant view. The monk shot daggers over his shoulder at the still smiling youkai, before pointedly fixing once again upon the crimson girls.
Sango and Kagome clamped both eyes shut before retreating a few steps.
"After all those lectures you two hurled at us to not peek at you when bathing, just what do you think you two are doing here?!" The monk admonished his voice straining to contain both anger and embarrassment.
"Now, now," the grinning hanyou began, "perhaps they wanted to joi…" luckily this invitation was overshadowed by Sango's moan and Kagome's embarrassed sputtering.
"I…we…Shippou said…we thought…" Kagome tried to entreat her friends support by turning her head in the direction she believed Sango was standing, studiously refusing to unclamp her eyelids.
Without so much as a word to the men before her, Sango opened her eyes and clasped Kagome's arm tightly. The taijiya's embarrassed flush had transformed into crimson fury. Swiftly, and a bit to forcefully, she retreated with the younger girl still sputtering helplessly.
They had breached the glades edge when an earth rending screech shattered the calm once again.
"SHIPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!!!!!!!!"
I'm going to KILL that little…
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Miroku's smile widened as he watched the furious women retreat.
"Perhaps I should stop them; they could still join us…" The hanyou mused arching an eyebrow at the man now standing beside him as if waiting for consent.
"You shut your dirty mouth…" the dark haired man nearly growled.
"Do we have an agreement then?" Miroku studied the stoic man calmly. "I'm sure you can see the logic…" The hanyou's voice was honey; a look of supreme innocence transformed the hanyou's handsome face to that of an angelic radiance.
"Hurmph…if I agree to this there are going to have to be some ground rules, if this is going to work, m—"
"Of course." The silver-haired man smoothly interjected, leading his friend to the now dry clothes. They dressed while discussing the particulars of the hanyou's scheme until a bargain had been struck and the pact had been made. The hanyou's hair flashed silver as it caught the afternoon's last dieing rays, the pair slowly made their way back to camp.
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The spring was peaceful once again its natural beauty marred only by a small insignificant silver fish, its teeth dyed rouge by the sunsets glory. Its eyes opaque in death, its small body bobbing among the jagged rocks; he had finally escaped his prison, though not in the way he had planned.
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Next time: What knowledge has the hanyou gained, what event has so changed the monk…more will be revealed in Chapter 4: Schooling the Hanyou
A/N Fun with words: Miko- Shinto priestess
Thanks to all of you that took the time to review last chapter. As I promised no immense cliff hanger this chapter…well at least no one's missing I'll continue to put out about 20 pages of story a week as long as you continue to R&R
As a side note, if anyone's looking for some really good writing/ interesting plots check out "my favorite stories" under my profile…these are some fine fics imho
Please read and review: Attention whore at your service: I still appreciate constructive criticism the most, but I'm not picky when it comes to attention. Domo.